Life after football: Bridgeport's Isaac Brown transitions to new role at the University of Tennessee

View full sizeIssac Brown makes a tackle in a 2005 game against Western Michigan.File | MLive.com

SAGINAW, MI — Isaac Brown's football career began at Bridgeport High School and led him all the way to the pros. Today, he's preparing for life outside the sport.

“I’m 95-percent sure that I’m done with football as a professional,”
Brown said. “I’ll go play in a flag football league or something like
that, or maybe even have some fun and play with the Saginaw Sting. But
as far as the business and football as a profession, I’m done."

After devoting most of his life to the game, Brown is doing what so many other athletes can’t. He’s walking away healthy and with a sound mind.

Dr. Darryl Douglas, a clinical psychologist at the University of
Michigan-Flint, says that the period of adjustment after athletes retire is similar to
the grieving process.

Athletes experience the loss of a major part of
their lives, and it can be a huge adjustment for them. The general rule
is that it takes approximately 180 days to adjust to their
new lives.

“It’s common for a person to just kind of get stuck,”
Douglas said. “The early grieving stages are like depression, and there
can be changes in appetite and withdrawing from activities and things a
person has enjoyed the majority of their life.”

Brown took preventative measures and started thinking about life after football far before he hung up his cleats.

“Ike
was a guy who listened to the advice that was out there from us and
different people within CFL and NFL organizations,” said Matthew Pope, a
sports agent at Exclusive Sports Group. “He always took advantages of
opportunities that exist to athletes, whether that was going back to
school to coach in the off-season or working with different trainers. He
has that business mind and didn’t let football define him.”

Using
the advice he received and taking advantage of those opportunities given
to him, Brown’s relationships with his former coaches have led him to the next phase in life. His former Central Michigan University coach, Butch Jones, is now the
head coach at the University of Tennessee and recently named Brown as the
new assistant strength and conditioning coach.

“Ike has always
wanted to be in that world, and he did that back at Central,” said Pope.
“He always understood that you could have a great career and be 30 years
old and still have a lot of life left to live.”

Brown was a standout running back at Bridgeport High School and received a scholarship to play at CMU. While there, he switched to the defensive side of the ball and played safety and linebacker. After graduation, he tried his hand at the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons but was a longshot for making the final 53-man roster because of his size.

“Those guys down there were 6-1 or 6-2 and weighed 230 pounds or more, and I was 5-11 at 215,” Brown said. “I was undersized, so I was already deemed a special teams player when I got there, and they weren’t looking at me as a defensive player.”

With a third position change in three years, Brown decided to try his hand in the Canadian Football League.

View full sizeBrown during his days with the Hamilton Tiger-CatsPhoto courtesy of Isaac Brown

Special teams players generally don't receive the recognition or big contracts in the NFL that go to offensive or defensive stars.

But Brown found out things are different north of the border.

“It’s different, and special teams play as much as the offense and defense,” Brown said. “We only have three downs versus four like the NFL, and our play clock is only 20 seconds versus 40. The game is a lot faster, so we get a lot of playing time.”

In 2009, Brown got his shot with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and excelled in his new role. But in 2012, he considered retiring. The game that he grew up loving and playing wasn’t giving him the same joy. The fun of football got lost in the business of it, but after Brown signed a new three-year deal he decided to “hang on and let it ride out.”

However, a quadriceps injury caused Brown to miss most of the season. He then received a call from the team informing him that they’d decided to release him.

Brown, however, had already decided he was done. A phone call that would cause most football players to feel a range of emotions caused Brown to only feel one.

Happiness.

“I thought back to when I was in Atlanta when I got cut, and I was in a panic and frenzy to find another team,” Brown said. “It was like I was homeless. I was on the phone with my agent all the time going crazy trying to find a workout here or there, but this time around, I smiled when I hung up the phone and took it as a sign from God that bigger and better things were coming.”

Those things wound up coming in the form of a position with the Volunteers. Brown has already made the transition to Tennessee and is eagerly awaiting the start of the 2013 season.

“He knew he wasn’t going to play forever and he set himself up for his future,” Pope said.